by Anonymous
What Wasps Drink
I don’t live to listen—
not to the lawnmower’s drone chewing damp grass,
nor wasps humming low like nerves in the air,
nor cars dissolving, time-slick,
along a far-off road.
I live to drown in silence.
I live to close my eyes—
to unsee grass shimmering in windlight,
to unlearn the shadows of wasps, flickering midair—
black-and-yellow peril,
violence costumed in gentleness.
I turn from the tree’s crooked shadow,
draw the blinds. Let darkness cradle me.
But even silence
can’t mute the glint outside.
My gaze snags—
on a torn plastic wrapper
winking false gold through the grass.
The wasps find it first,
sipping poison
sweetened to sting.
In September,
the queen deserts her nest,
her daughters scatter—
fevered drones scouring sweetness
to prolong their pointless flight.
I climbed a mountain once,
to leave behind the noise of names.
They trailed behind breath in cold air—
visible, then gone.
They meant little by then,
just syllables the wind forgot.
At the summit, I stood in stillness,
a thread unspooling
into the sky—
a drop of water
surrendered to the ocean of air.
I don’t live to listen—
but silence breaks its hush.
I don’t live to see—
but the world forces its image on me.
I crave
honey.
But I drink
what wasps
drink.
Nathan Doyle is a poet and writer from Boston, MA. He received a Scholastic Silver Key in Poetry and three Honorable Mentions. His work explores silence, survival, and the spaces between perception and memory. What Wasps Drink marks his first published poem. Find him on Instagram @geekgumo.
Anonymous.